Gas Station Nation & God Bless The IRS

Till We Meet Again

So I'd be totally lying if I said I wasn't starting to miss Antioch. Which is weird because it's only been four days. It's a week between meetings anyway. So what the hell? I think it's got to do with this Facebook thing. When I started the only way we could stay in touch after a weekend was by passing around a piece of paper and writing our phone numbers and home addresses on it. None of us had cell phones, few of us had e-mail. Pagers. Lots of people had pagers. Starting to get the idea here? Fast forward just a few years and we were pretty much exclusively communicating via e-mail. You wanted to stay in touch you sent out a mass mail. Let everyone know how much you missed them. Bump up again and we were all going back and forth on Myspace. It never really took off for the group, but it was certainly a thing. Everyone was just text messaging back and forth anyway. Facebook is sort of different though. Not four days removed and I'm sitting at my desk watching videos of Michelle doing the Macarena, Fish doing the chicken dance in a chicken suit, and just about everybody doing the Electric Slide. I'm looking through pictures (and I'm even in some of them!) of things that have happened over the past few months, even commenting on them. We're still talking about each other but I don't really know if we're talking to each other. It's weird. But it's something. And something is better than nothing.


Dr.Eam

I'm standing in a gas station parking lot. I can't tell if this is the Alter-World but it's clearly a dream. There are these two girls standing near a pay phone in one corner of the lot and the gas station attendant is walking over to us. He looks familiar but I can't quite place him.

The two girls are talking and the one mentions that she's known the other for about ten years but she didn't actually know her name. They seem like best friends all of a sudden. They seem to know me to, but I don't really know them. One looks like a girl I know, but I don't think it's her.

So the gas station attendant comes over and starts to tell us we have to leave, but then he realizes he knows one of the girls. So they start to talk leaving me to chat with the other. We talk for a minute before the guy decided he knows me too, so now the three of us are talking and the one girl is left alone. I decide to stop talking to the other two and just talk to her. We go around and around in circles like this for a minute, some sort of odd cyclical conversation until I finally break away and say I have to leave. The gas station attendant asks for my business card. Oddly enough there is one right in my wallet where I usually keep one. It's the only bit of the dream that makes any sense.


The Return of Captain Cash

So last night I didn't really want to go out. I wanted to get some stuff done around the house, wanted to watch some tv and eat some shit I shouldn't be eating, and then I wanted to get some sleep. Because I'm old. And exhausted. It was looking pretty good for that going down just like I expected right up until I realized it was Ash Wednesday. I never actually get ashes on Ash Wednesday but sometimes I just go to mass. I knew some of the team was going so I was considering it. Things went long at work though so I didn't. Now I intentionally didn't pick up my clothes from the dry cleaners or my pants from my mom's house because I knew if I got bored enough and had something clean to change into I'd be going out. I also didn't stop at the bank or take any money out of the box. I also didn't shave. Fuck it, I was staying home if it killed me. When one of the guys called I didn't even ask if he was around last night, I just talked about the weekend then said I had to go. I was not going out. I had just gotten out of the car when I heard my cell phone ring from it's place on the console. I didn't go back to answer I just went and picked up some food. When I get back in the car I see who it was that called. Damn. I missed that call the other night too and I really don't want to be rude. But I'm not calling back. I never call back.


So I get home and my sister helps me clean the dog up, and I'm doing a bit of tidying up around the house when I get a text message. Damn. Now I have to reply. I'm not going out. I've got no clean clothes, I'm a mess, and I've got no money whatsoever. I have less than a grand on me and for those of you not in the know when I go out I go out. Not saying I would have spent it all, but I would have spent enough of it that I'd have to reload in the morning and until that income tax return comes in and I call in the chit on some outstanding loans I've got nothing to reload with. I'm down to my last four grand and I've got a check out for half of that going towards my mortgage. After that I'm coasting on fumes. I've got nothing major planned in the next few weeks (although Boston will cost a few bucks the guys still owe me their shares that I already laid out, and I would really like to bankroll a trip to see Watchmen). So I send back a text message (which took a good eight minutes to type) saying that I'm not trying to be rude and ignore the messages, but I've just been busy and hope to catch up soon. I don't mention the fact that she's a pretty expensive hobby. She replies that she'll be working Friday and Saturday and that I should "come over" because she "misses" me. Who's she think she's fooling here? I have no illusions about any of the stupid ass things I do, and I hate when other people seem to think I do.


When I got to work this morning I found out that the smaller state end of my refund already came through. I'll probably spend it all on booze and comic books. God I love being an adult.


So I've got some things to get done in the next little bit, got a few fights to have with the old man, and I've got to take a few seconds to keep my head straight because as much of a blast as losing my mind was last time I'd actually like to stay sane for just a little while longer.